


Spike & Jerry

by naturalblues



Category: Doctor Who, Takin' Over the Asylum
Genre: A reason to live, Bipolar Disorder, Bullying, Depression, F/M, High School AU, Suicidal Thoughts, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking, jackie tyler not doing well in the parenting department, jackie tyler's alcoholism, two idiots falling in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-04 02:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6637900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naturalblues/pseuds/naturalblues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rose Tyler finally decides on the day she's going to kill herself, she finds that her plans are interrupted by an urge to help save the life of the only person who has been kind to her. The only problem is, she has to keep him alive until graduation and that's months from now. What's that funny feeling she gets every time she looks at him? That won't work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spike & Jerry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KTRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KTRose/gifts).



> I wrote this for my beloved KTRose, because she's magic, and I needed a way to say thank you to her. Multi-chapter, much shorter chapters than I usually do, and this is not her almighty gift work -- she has another in the mix coming soon.
> 
> There is underaged drinking, smoking, etc. because they are both seventeen, turning eighteen. There is some suicidal ideation, and some other difficult subjects to do with mental health. Please, if any of that is a squick or trigger for you, take care of yourselves.
> 
> Rose's quote she reads in class is from tumblr, it's not mine.

 

Suicide blonde hair, dark brown eyes, and full lips.  
 

She knew she was beautiful, and she hated that fact.  
 

She didn’t want to be ugly either, though. Either way, she’d get comments from people.  
 

Last night had been shit, and she couldn’t stop thinking about it.  
 

 _She’d been ready to finally do it, commit suicide. She’d sat on top of the toilet lid, wearing her pair of hipster knickers and a pink tank top with the number 85 on it, in orange faded writing. Her knickers were the ones that had that weird cutesy y-front bit that made them look like they were imitating men’s underwear. She liked that they had a penguin on the bum and green and red stripes. She had on mismatched socks and had spent most of the night going through her notes, a notebook that her mum had long since learned not to touch. Well, when her mum remembered she was there; most of the time all her mum could think about was where her next drink was coming from -- usually it was whatever disgusting middle aged pervert was boffing her. Her mum hadn't remembered groceries for the past two weeks, so Rose was down to eating sugar sandwiches - again. She'd gone through everything in the book, if she was honest. Hanging, jumping off a building, jumping off a bridge, poison, all ways that sounded complicated and obsessively.... icky. She looked down at her one yellow and one blue sock in despair. Why was she being such a coward?! How good must it feel, to suddenly be out of pain? She honestly didn’t give a fuck about matching right now, no one was going to see her anyhow._  


_Oh, well. There were the ones who would find her, but she wouldn’t give a fuck about that. She’d elected not to._  
  
  
_She’d be dead._  


_Would there be a woman nearby to find her dead body first and scream? Rose found herself dearly hoping there would be. She felt owed that scream._  


_But instead, just as she’d been going to go to the kitchen and steal some of the coconut that the idiot her mum was shagging had kept in the fridge, she’d caught him looking through it. Standing up, he’d looked her up and down like a piece of meat, making her run off to the safety of her bedroom. Those looks were dangerous. She pressed her back against the door in case he would try to come in, but he didn’t. She walked around to the other side of the bed, gripped with humiliation and regret that made her stomach feel cold and that icy feeling go along her veins, fuck but she hated herself so much._  


_She’d do it tomorrow night, when her mum was out with the idiot. She was deathly allergic to coconut, and needed an epipen anytime she had any. That would be the easiest way to go, she’d figured._  
 

For now she was walking down the halls of her high school, ignoring everyone around her and mostly staying in her own head, today. She didn’t even remember what day of the week it was, if she was honest. Couldn’t sleep all night because her upstairs neighbors had just moved in, and they were part time parents who never parented those two toddlers at all. All night long, slamming and banging. She’d wanted to grab a pan and beat the parents with it. Not like child services would do a bloody thing about it, either way. No one gave a shit about Estate Kids. Never ended up in no clubs at school, no clubs outside of it, just gangs, trouble, and basketball courts. Not that she was overly participatory, but she couldn’t quiet her internal dialogue today. Something about today just made it feel necessary, going over every detail of what she wouldn't see anymore with a fine toothed comb. Her life was looking pretty slummy, not much to really miss if she was honest. What the hell was she, a narrator?  
 

She was wearing her usual coat -- a biker style leather jacket that had the words “Bad Wolf” airbrushed onto the back --with a ripped up pair of jeans, her ankle boots a bit too short to make it work properly, but when a girl didn’t have any scratch and needed to use a thrift store to look unapproachable, she made do. Just needed more attitude was all. Her clothes were always ripped, and it was because the torn shit was in a special discount bin at the thrifty, so if she wanted more clothing, she'd had to use that. She'd adjusted her dress code to at least work the looks, because if she didn't, she wouldn't be happy, right? She'd look like either some hippie art student, or some faded out rocker.

Well, she used to be. Now she wasn't as nice as a faded out rocker would be. But the look still worked. People appeared to either think she'd done it on purpose or just didn't want to piss her off.  
  

Work with it.  
 

Don’t cultivate attachments to anyone, just hold your head up high and for this one last day, live a little.  
 

Her mum’s cheerleader dreams for her had never worked out, despite the fact that she’d tried, at one point. She didn’t have any musical talent, either (mostly because who could afford all of the lessons and instruments and shite while living on the Estates?!) so there went her plan for carrying an instrument big enough to knock a cheerleader on her ass.  
  
  
Eugh, Maths was next. Didn’t she have a quiz to avoid?  
 

She really just wanted to be home right now if she was honest -- nah, scratch that; her mum was probably still rowing with whichever flavor of the month she had now. What was his name? Johnny? -- she would rather just be anywhere but school.  
 

Jamie, that was his name. Jamie.  
 

Jerry?  
 

Fuck, did it matter?  
 

Her last day on sodding Earth, and she was at school. What a fucking lamearse.

   
She got tapped in the back of her shoulder and instantly whipped around with an eyebrow twitching and a mouth a moue of anger. It maybe was an overreaction, but in a high school, it really wasn't. This was the Serengeti and these kids were out for blood. Responding this way was _good_ , because it meant the little fuckers left you _alone_.  
 

This asshole must be _new_.  
 

One look and her face relaxed into simply disagreeable. It was just that drama geek, what was his name again??  
 

“Ye….. ye dropped these…” he stammered, his brogue thickening with his anxiety.  
 

He was handing her the pack of Lucky Strikes that’d fallen out of her ass pocket.  
 

 _The hell?!_ He could’ve used these to report her and maybe try to get her in trouble or something. Something teenagery and dramatic.  
 

But he hadn’t.  
 

She took the pack from his hands gently and nodded, shoving them back where they belonged and walking away, hearing his sigh of relief at her not flipping her shit at him.  
 

Beh, cute kid. Could use a haircut, though.  
 

She remembered him by now, he was such a sweet and kind soul, and the world loved to wipe it’s ass with those. Every time he showed love and interest in anything he presented in any class, the other kids were quick to mock him, embarrassing him about his own dreams. She'd used to have dreams. Just watching him perform during class presentations had embittered her, because he wasn't so jaded like the rest of them. He was always ready with a smile, and she'd secretly hated him for it; how could he find so much joy in the world?! The jocks always tripped him on his way back to his desk, and the teachers were useful for fuckall in this situation.  
 

She’d never said a word about it, because she was too busy being emotionally killed from things at home, fighting her own demons of an absentee drunk mother and not knowing where their next meal was coming from.  
 

Now, he was being kind and gentle again, and unbearably honest in the face of what she now represented -- danger.  
 

 _He’d been the only one to clap at her words she’d said in English today, when they’d been asked to write a few sentences about what they’d wanted to be to other people. There’d been a few who’d wanted to be perceived by people as powerful, some as smart, some as famous, a lot of girls as beautiful._  


_But Rose had simply given three sentences. “I'm not interested in being easy on the eyes. I want them to flinch, think twice before they reach out their callous hands to bruise. I want to be a constant reminder to people that not everything is theirs for the taking.”_  


_No one had clapped with the exception of him, and the teacher had said “Very…. belligerent, Ms. Tyler.”_  


_She’d nodded, and sat back down._  
 

This guy was an actual fucking cinnamon roll, and she’d ignored him.  
 

She should’ve thanked him.  
 

 _Shit.  
_  

Now she was gonna die with a regret.  
 

Welp, that just wouldn’t do.

 

* * *

 

Her chance to thank the precious little shit came that same afternoon.  
 

Walking down the hallways during lunch, she could hear the sound of someone being punched. That grunt of air was unmistakeable - straight to the stomach instead of the diaphragm. Two other voices egging on whoever was doing the punching called out ‘ _Nerd! Get ‘em!’_ and ‘ _C’mon, Jimmy, kick ‘is arse!’  
_  

Jimmy Stone, she should’ve known. The other two voices sounded like his two cronies, Lawrence (who went by Lars) and Avery.  
 

Oh well, none of her business, with the exception that her locker was in this building--  
 

“You’re gonna _say my name_ , you little Scotchie fucking fairy!”  
 

“Let me _go_!”  
 

She recognized the voice from the boy from this morning, and from her Drama course. She never participated, but he always did. He cared so much about everything he did in that it gave her secondhand embarrassment when she watched him act out monologues with so much passion just to be greeted by the jeers of the asshole jocks who sounded like they were kicking his ass now.  
 

Right. By. Her. Locker.  
 

There were no coincidences.  
 

She gazed upon the scene and saw the boy on the ground in the fetal position, being kicked by dumb and dumber.  
 

Her voice cut through everything, and froze even the guy on the ground.  
  
  
“FREEZE!” she snapped, pissed off.  
 

“Rose,” Jimmy breathed, looking at her with surprise.  
 

“The hell you think you’re upta, Jimmy?”  
 

“Just taking out uncool garbage, is all.”  
 

“Oh, why don’t you pick on someone your own size then?” she stood toe to toe with him, and not the way he would’ve liked. He wanted to fuck her, not be challenged by her.  
 

“Wot? Like… _you_?! Don’t make me hurt you, Rosie Posie.”  
 

She laughed a bit, turning halfway away before launching back to him with her grip on his shoulder near his neck and slamming him into the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of him.  
 

“You wanna take me on, Jimmy?? Hmm? I will reach down your throat, rip out your spinal cord and skip rope with it.” her growling tone made him flinch.  
 

“Oh yeah?” he had a sudden air of confidence. Ah, he was about to make a reference to the fact that they’d dry humped once. “Last time I saw’r ya, we were back at my place, in my bedroom. We were doing things. Remember that?”  
 

“Only thing I remember was leaving. Which is actually my fondest memory of you.”  
 

“Bitch!” he shouted, taking a swing at her.  
 

She grabbed his hand and twisted it to the right, twirling him around and chicken winging it behind his back, pressing him against the wall with a lot of force.  
 

“You leave that boy alone, you hear me? A fight with that kid s’a fight with me n’I ain’t so ready to lay down n take a fokken thing. We fight, you’d better’ve made your peace with God. Am I clear?”

Why was she saying this? She was making a long promise, being so willing to fight for that kid. She'd have to stick around til he graduated, with the way everyone was always kicking his ass!  
 

“...Crystal. Crystal clear.”

 

No sense going back on it now, she supposed.  
 

“Good. Now get outta here.” she released him, and the three ran off.

* * *

 

There was silence for a few seconds before the boy’s voice croaked out a “Than--” but he was stopped by her snapping her fingers and holding up one in a silencing gesture without even looking at him. She grabbed her smokes out of her ass pocket, pulled the zippo out and casually lit one in a way that Campbell _knew_ he was gonna use as spank material for a long time.  
 

She exhaled, dragoning it with her nose a bit before leaving the ciggy in her mouth, spinning the lock to it’s combo and punching her locker twice. Campbell was surprised to see it pop open. She grinned a bit, butt between her teeth, before muttering some joke about people getting locked in there or something, he didn’t know. She grabbed a small bag and opened it, revealing babywipes. Helping to hoist the guy up into a sitting position that made him look drunk, she began to clean his face, smirking around the ciggy when he hissed in pain.  
 

She removed her smoke, exhaling more, and keeping it between her fingers. “Oh, but you’re such a _girl_!” she chided in a voice that didn’t sound like her usual unfriendly demeanor. It sounded normal, and he swore he could see a halo around her head.  
 

“S…. sorry... “ he stammered, nor really sure where all of this came from.  
 

“Don’t say _sorry_ ,” she snapped. “I hate _sorry_. Everyone’s always fucking sorry. S’just words.”  
 

“Oh…. okay,” he murmured, not sure how to respond to that. “....Why did ye--”  
 

“You need someone to walk you to class, obviously,” she said like she was mentioning foods off her grocery list, finishing her cigarette and putting it out on the locker. From the looks of the varnish on it, this was a habit of hers.  
 

“But…. ye’ll be late fer yers…”  
 

“When have I ever given a fuck about being on time to class?” her face was twisted in a disgusted and shocked wince as though the very thought offended the delicacy of her nature. Maybe it did, he wasn’t sure.  
 

“I…. I dunno…”  
 

“Cool.” He’d never really spoken to a girl before, and especially not one this… awesome. She had used the word ‘cool’ with him. Oh god, this was amazing.  
 

Oh god, he was pathetic as shit.  
 

She helped him up, and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, helping him to class without complaint.  
 

“What your name, soldier?” she phrased it casually, a light jab at how fucked up he looked.  
 

“Campbell. Campbell Bain.”  
 

“I’m Rose, Rose Tyler.”  
 

“Nice to meet you.”  
 

Silence after that, until they made it to a few doors down from his Chemistry class. She stopped him and turned him around to the wall.  
 

“They’re gonna ask you if you got messed about, and you need to tell em you’re fine. Don’t be a _girl_ and agree to go to the nurse’s station. Just tell em you’re alright, and try an’ walk straight. Don’t show em any weaknesses, cuz they’ll be back on ya, ‘n I’m takin a break this period. But any of em mess with ya, you gimme names. You hear?”  
 

He’d been so shellshocked by the entire thing, it reminded him of that cartoon with Jerry the Mouse and Spike the Dog, with Spike helping Jerry escape Tom.  
 

“I….. uh…”  
 

“Campbell.” she spoke his name and even though it was in an impatient way, he wanted to hear her always say it. She was the first person other than a teacher who’d said it, addressed him as a person instead of insulting him for loving acting and music so much.  
 

How had his life appeared to change so fast?  
 

But he’d nodded his assent just the same.  
 

They continued walking after that point and made it to his class. She stood there just outside of it, patting his shoulder lightly and watching him enter while sending her most malicious looks at anyone making snide comments. Most of them didn’t see her, but they would in time. With a bit of luck, the boy - Campbell? - might just live to graduate.  
 

She finally ended up deciding that she couldn’t trust the other kids with him, so she’d stood outside the window of his classroom, about ten feet away, under the shade of a tree. She watched him from afar and felt a bit like Angel watching Buffy, just trying to gauge whether the kid was gonna die or not. The girl, Jeanne, she was laughing at Campbell, openly giggling and making fun with her group of catty little friends. They were even pointing at him. Rose saw that Campbell was wilting more and more under so much scrutiny.  
 

Rose removed her biker gloves, and began cracking her knuckles, which had letters tattooed across them - _DOLL FACE_.  
 

Those girls were next on her list of people to have a chat with.  
 

“You’re welcome,” she muttered to no one, lighting another cigarette and deciding that if she had to live, she was going to make someone else’s life worth it before she finally died.  
 

One more task.


End file.
